NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio Both Looked Shaken at Tonight’s Press Conference, de Blasio Even Wiping Away Tears, and Saying All the Right Things, but They Sounded Off-Key from Him

By Nicholas Stix

When an old copper like Bill Bratton sounds shaken at a press conference speaking about two men he just lost in the line of duty, and says, echoing his legendary LAPD predecessor, William Parker, that “You put that uniform on and you become part of that thin blue line between us and the anarchy,” I believe him.

Bill de Blasio also said all the right things, but it came across phony. “It is an attack on all of us, everything we hold dear…. Evil.”

He spoke of it as an attack on “civilization.”

Who is he kidding? This is just the sort of thing he’s supported and encouraged his entire adult life. Officers Liu and Ramos are his kills.

As he spoke, de Blasio wiped away tears. May readers will be asking, “Were they real?”

I think they were. De Blasio had just spent a good deal of time “praying over the bodies” of the dead officers with their families. Although de Blasio is an atheistic communist, what counted to him was that he was spending time with human beings he cares about: Neither officer was white, and their widows were presumably also not white. Although de Blasio prefers the company of blacks, and cares little for Asians, anything is better than whites, in his eyes, and so he was able to feel real human comity with the families. Had either of the cops been a normal white man, de Blasio would either have had to fake it, a la Bill Clinton, or speak dry-eyed.

In spite of Bratton and my differences, I was already feeling compassion for him, before today’s assassinations, as he tried to hold together a department in an impossible situation. And considering what he pulled against me six years ago, I had every reason to hate his guts.

But with that said, his department was already in chaos prior to today.

De Blasio now needs him more than ever, while Bratton needs de Blasio less and less.